Judge: Confine felon at home
Temporary release for ex-head of clinic in fraud case urged
A federal judge has urged the Justice Department to temporarily release the former head of a Houston psychiatric clinic who is serving a 20-year prison term for Medicare fraud.
Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal denied a request submitted by Earnest Gibson IV for compassionate release from the federal lockup in Arkansas where he is, due to the threat of COVID-19. But she said the court “strongly recommends” that the federal Bureau of Prisons grant him two years of home confinement before he resumes his incarceration.
Gibson, 42, suffers from severe asthma, and Rosenthal noted in her order Wednesday since he did not commit a capital offense “requiring him to remain in prison during the pandemic may be a death sentence” and “that cannot be tolerated.”
Rosenthal has been navigating the government’s handling of inmates amid the coronavirus outbreak at a range of detention settings, including other requests for compassionate release from federal prisons. Since the pandemic, the lawyers in a civil rights case challenging Harris County’s felony practices sought an injunction for releases of thousands of indigent defendants who have not been convicted but are now held in a major COVID-19 hot spot, the Harris County Jail. Rosenthal denied the motion for an injunction in that case.
According to an official website, the Bureau of Prisons has placed 3,311 inmates on home confinement following a March 26 memo by Attorney General William Barr, urging officials to release nonviolent, low risk inmates who may be vulnerable to the virus.
Gibson and his co-defendants, including his father, Earnest Gibson III, were convicted in a fiveweek 2014 jury trial of an extensive $160 million scheme over sev
en years involving fraudulent claims for Medicare-reimbursed partial hospitalization program services. The son was sentenced in 2015 to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $7.5 million restitution.
Gibson ran a partial hospitalization program, Devotions Care Solutions, a satellite of Riverside Hospital. The jury found he facilitated false claims for mental health treatment. He admitted patients to his clinic who were not eligible for services, directed his employees to bill Medicare for services that were not provided and paid kickbacks for patient referrals. Many patients had substance abuse problems and psychological conditions, making it easy to take advantage of them in carrying out the fraud scheme.
Evidence showed that Medicare beneficiaries rarely saw psychiatrists and they did not receive intensive psychiatric treatment. In fact, some of the beneficiaries were suffering from Alzheimer’s and were unable to participate in the treatment for which Medicare was billed.